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Its Monday after Adepticon and I've shaved, showered, and started to return to normal life. However, this past weekend was a total blast! Adepticon was great, everyone in my group had a fun time, we played lots of games, and the car was full of chatter on the way home about our plans for next year. That is the litmus test for a successful trip.

To nobodies surprise, this was a 40K dominated event. Sure fantasy was in full force, with much smaller entry pools and other companies made a mark (Warmachine and FoW)- 40K was king. And the king is alive and well. The main hall was always packed and full of a buzz that only comes with hundreds of players discussing action on the table. And as to be expected, such an event brought out the best in painted armies. This isn't the place to go into the tournaments in detail, plenty of other sites are doing that, but I'll just say my experience in the main hall showed that the Adepticon staff did a great job moving all of the events along. This is a well oiled machine when it comes to administering a tournament- at this scale.

The only event I played in was the 40K Team Tournament on Saturday. We were a relatively late addition to the party, only have about three months to plan. I know, it sounds silly. The room full of all sorts of ridiculously awesome armies, themes, and players. And yes the rumor is true, if you weren't playing Air Guard, you were in the minority. Ok perhaps it wasn't that bad, but well over a third of the armies were air guard. At least Vendettas look awesome! But that is ok, there were lots of other cool things to see.

Community? Lets put it this way, the team that won 'Best Spirit' gave away press-on mustaches to all participants and their army list was a magazine! Above all this tournament celebrated all that the 40K hobby is right now- theme, enthusiasm, teamwork, community, and a great time. The scenarios were detailed and complicated, but my personal thought was that they were balanced and fun to play.

Our team didn't do well (top of bottom-third), but since I am a community/friendly player, it didn't matter much. Our opponents were good fun. Finished 2-2 with one bad loss, one strong win, and two close matches that came down to the details. More to come later.

The other thing that was going on was the classes. In fact, a friend of mine did nothing but take classes. Most of them were about the hobby aspect- painting, modeling, etc. The teachers were a who's who of White Dwarf, Golden Demon, and bad-ass artist/painters that we have heard of. The best part was being able to touch (and in some instances fondle) models that had only previously appeared in glossy form. Every class provided tons of information that I'll use to be a better painter.

Lastly, it was a joy to see friends I didn't expect to be there. Guys I played with years ago all over the country poured out of holes I didn't know existed. It was totally awesome! In addition it was great to talk to and hang out with the 40K radio crowd - Spencer/Chipley/Edlanesh/Krayola Smoker/Doctor Snake you guys are awesome, it was fun talking 40K to like-minded hobby nuts. I hope that your finger hickey heals up Spencer. :)

If you haven't gone to Adepticon before- go next year. Don't' think about it, just do it! I'll see you there next year.

Oh, and one last thing. Props out to the hotel- The Westin in Lombard. Sometime Saturday night, my car was broken into. Nothing was gone except my el' chepo GPS system. The hotel staff took great care of us: calling the police, helping clean out the car, giving us material to patch up the window for the ride come, and just providing a shoulder to cry on while we got ready to leave. Thanks for being top notch. I'll remember this next time I am choosing a hotel. And the car? No biggie, it'll be fixed tomorrow and its all my fault for leaving the GPS in plain view in a garage. I just wanted to say Thanks to the fine folks at the Westin for being total top class with their customers.

Day was is over at the greatest miniature wargaming con on the planet. Think I'm overselling it? More than 1,100 wargamers are present this weekend!! My first day was awesome, I got to meet up with a dear old friend and ran into several more old friends that I wasn't expecting to see. I even got a game in against Reuben and his Khorne Marines. Now I don't want to brag or anything, but he is a 'Ard Boy Winner and he did get deposited back at his hotel crying (just a bit!).

Saturday brings the Team Tournament. 100 Teams. 400 Players. Looking at what we are likely to see. It looks like we brought Nerf guns to the fight. Right now we are hoping just to embarrass ourselves!

For most people, Adepticon begins tomorrow. However, for me, I'll be showing up Friday (it sucks to have to work!). However, I plan to jump right in as soon my battlewagon pulls into the hotel with a couple of classes, some pick up games and getting a good nights sleep prior to the Team Tournament.

My previous posts shed some light into my list and our teams strategy for this tournament. Because of a busy work and family schedule, I've only gotten two games in. And as I expected, it kicked butt one game, and failed the other. My fear with an aggressive list such as this is that it will either be totally awesome, or fall on its face. Both will be spectacular spectacles!

Both ways, I hope to have my Flip camera giving some turn by turn battle reports from the Team Tournament.

Most importantly, my army has been done for some time now. I've finished with the sealant on the Lucius Pattern Dreadnoughts and even got time to paint another Lucius Pattern for my Crimson Fist partner. I'll have pictures of those up soon.

Don't forget to follow me on twitter as I'll be posting through the weekend.

I've talked about this before, but one the things I love about squad leaders and characters in the 40K universe is that they have giant banners on their back. A friend of mine who is quite the military historian says that this is crazy and guarantees that he will be targeted by enemy fire. Apparently, in the 40th millennium you want the big bad crazies coming straight to your space marine leader.

With Adepticon looming near, I have taken two of my Sergeants and converted some banners to their backs. In the future, all sergeants will be getting a banner.

For these models, I scanned a copy of 'Insignium Astartes' and copied the image of the sergeant into photoshop and resized the image to fit on a standard banner. From there, I painted over the image with my standard colors to give it a bit more "hand drawn" feel to it. The final results are good for my table quality Space Marines.

My March entry will probably have a theme that is familiar to some who have chimed in on other posts of mine. To no surprise, I bring you another Ironclad Dreadnought- Crixus, Champion Ironclad Dreadnought of the Second Company of the Ultramarines.

Sorry, no WiP this month. With Adepticon coming soon, and I was asked to paint some stuff for the rest of the team, I started on this before I remembered to get some pictures. However, after doing another Ironclad, 4 dreadnought drop pods, objective markers, and getting my tactical squads ready for travel, one of my keys to success has already come to past- get plenty of sleep the week before the big con! A couple of my teammates have already confessed that they will be painting right up until the time of the event. Boo to that I say!

No WiP pictures today, perhaps a few tonight. However I wanted to let you know what I was doing and what came in the mail last week.... two FW dreadnought (Lucius) pattern dreadnoughts! Combine that with another Iron Clad Dreadnought- I'll be painting three things this month (if you count the dedicated transports). Why do this??? Well getting ready for Adepticon and the team tournament. :) The Lucius Drop Pods allow the dreadnought to charge the turn it drops! Each team member will be dropping 4 Ironclads in DP's on turn one (if the setup goes well).

Also, I have been watching Sparticus on Starz. Lots of great Latin/UM names in that show. I think that I'll name this Ironclad "CRIXIS" after the badass rival gladiator in the in the gladiator school.